


sometimes the old ways are best

by cumaeansibyl



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Caning, Coming Untouched, Consensual Kink, Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Figging, Light Masochism, Light Sadism, M/M, Restraints, Sub Crowley (Good Omens), it's not exactly a roleplay but it's not NOT a roleplay, you know how it is with these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cumaeansibyl/pseuds/cumaeansibyl
Summary: Mr Harrison makes a nuisance of himself. Mr Cortese administers a little vintage correction.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Mr Cortese/Mr Harrison (Good Omens)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 166
Collections: Top Aziraphale Recs





	sometimes the old ways are best

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: Mr Cortese doesn't explain everything he's doing before he does it, because he and Mr Harrison have agreed to conduct the scene that way. DO NOT spring surprises on your partner unless you have a really trusting relationship and you've negotiated that possibility beforehand! That's a really good way for everyone to have a bad time.

Young Warlock Dowling’s schoolroom is on the ground floor, an unused second parlor that’s escaped several rounds of renovations for want of a fixed purpose. There’s dark parquet flooring, regrettable Victorian-revival curtains from the seventies, a mohair armchair from the 1920s with springs sticking out the bottom, and a genuine antique desk fronting the room. It’s at that desk that Mr Harrison finds the other genuine antique, his new colleague Mr. Cortese, fussing with his chalkboard protractor. 

“Morning, Cortese,” Mr Harrison says, leaning artfully in the doorway to display his long tailored lines. “Nice to see they’ve found a place that suits you.” 

“Yes, it is quite a suitable room,” Mr Cortese says mildly, without looking up. “There’ll be good natural light once we’ve pulled those curtains back.”

“Oh, that’s not at all period-accurate,” Harrison says. He saunters into the room with an extra bit of insolence to his step. “Can’t let in fresh air or sunlight, you’ll catch a brain fever.”

“That’s consumption you’re thinking of,” Cortese says. “Brain fever’s primary cause was a dissolute lifestyle.”

“What, like staying out past ten? Overindulging in green tea? Poor sods.” Harrison languishes halfway over the desk, right into Cortese’s personal space bubble and then some, so Cortese is finally obliged to look at him. “If you’ve got to waste away and die, you should have a chance to earn it.”

“My dear fellow,” Cortese says, raking back his salt-and-pepper curls, “you know as well as I do that the Victorian reputation for conservatism was founded almost entirely on the public demeanor of the Queen. The rest of England was quite as licentious as it’s ever been.”

“Oh, sure, for the time,” Harrison says with a dismissive handwave. “Our pioneering forebears, et cetera, whatever. But we’ve come a long way since then, angel.” He picks up Cortese’s slide rule and twiddles the slides back and forth. “You do know they’ve been using calculators in school since the eighties, right?”

“Sometimes the old ways are best,” Cortese says, taking the rule from him and setting it out of his reach. 

“If you’ve never tried the new ways, maybe.” Harrison picks up a drawing compass and starts poking himself with the point. 

Cortese takes that from him too with a sharp little sigh. “Do you mind,” he says.

“Ooh, schoolmaster’s vexed,” Harrison taunts. “About to bend me over the desk for a good whipping? Six of the best?”

Cortese turns, deliberately, and gives Harrison a good long look, from his pointed snakeskin toes to his sleek red head. “Is that what you think you deserve?” he asks.

Harrison bites his lower lip but holds his ground. “I deserve much worse than that,” he says cheerily. “I mean, it’d be rather tame for the likes of me.”

“You don’t say.” Cortese strokes his beard, along the jawline, pretending not to notice the way Harrison’s eyes follow his hand. “I’m surprised you find it worthwhile to suggest such a thing, if you find the prospect so uninteresting.”

Harrison winces. “Now, let’s not be hasty, I never said it wasn’t interesting. Nothing wrong with taking things easy, eh? A little light recreation?”

“Nothing at all,” Cortese agrees.

—

Cortese always leaves the desk littered with his classroom supplies, and when Harrison arrives later that evening it’s no different, though of course it’s no longer maths but history on the syllabus. Most of it’s covered with a towel, but there’s a basin and ewer Harrison could swear came from Cortese’s own washstand. 

He’s also added a very specialized piece to the room’s furniture. It’s a simple A-frame, adjustable for height and angle. One side is padded, with a hole for the face, one for the feet, and two in between. There are cuffs for the ankles, and two sets for the wrists, to strap them at the sides or above the head.

“The entrepreneuse who invented this spanking horse,” Cortese explains — oh, how he loves explaining, the man is a born teacher — “would often have one of her young ladies sit under the apparatus here, to stimulate the client from the front while she attended to the rear.” He pats the padding, about where the stomach would rest. “I personally prefer the Berkley to other models because there’s no way for the subject to get any friction or pressure on their intimate parts.”

“Intimate pffthahaha stop, you’re not supposed to be torturing me yet,” Harrison sputters.

“Whenever you’re ready, then,” Cortese says brightly, removing his tweed jacket — it’s got leather elbow patches, Harrison can’t cope — and hanging it neatly on the coat tree. 

Harrison strips down, kicking his clothes into a pile that Cortese eyes with clear disapproval, and climbs onto the frame, settling his feet on the little platform and lifting his arms obligingly for Cortese to cuff them above his head. There’s extra padding around the lower edge of the head opening where it presses against his neck, and the holes below expose his chest and _intimate parts_. The angle is such that he can’t quite see himself if he looks, but it must be a ridiculous sight, everything swinging in the breeze. At least it’s not uncomfortable.

Cortese fastens the ankle straps and steps back, regarding the positioning with a critical eye. “I think that’ll do nicely,” he says. “Now, you’d left the exact choice of our entertainments up to me, on the theory that nothing from the period in question would dismay you. Correct?”

“Right,” Harrison says. He’s been to Amsterdam and Los Angeles and New York City, he’s seen it all. And if he hasn’t exactly _felt_ it all, or any of it, well, nothing could be worse than that thing he saw in San Francisco made out of recycled USB cords, right? Certainly not a stick they used to use on schoolboys. 

“Marvelous!” Cortese claps his hands and rubs them together, and Harrison rolls his eyes — that’s awfully close to a _let me show you a magic trick_ gesture. “I thought we would start with a bit of classic figging.”

“Okay, you got me, I don’t know the hottest slang of 1832. What’s figging?” Harrison glares. “This had better not involve pudding.”

“Oh, my, no.” Cortese picks up a napkin and unfolds it to reveal a large hand-shaped chunk of ginger. “This,” he says, “is figging.” He examines the root, turning it over in his hands, and then produces a sharp little folding knife from his waistcoat pocket. Choosing the largest finger, he carves off the remaining ones, leaving the wide middle section attached. Then, with delicate flicks of the blade, he begins whittling away the knots and bumps, shaping the root into a smooth cylinder with a tapered tip, widening gradually and then flaring out at the base. The sharp, clean scent of ginger fills the air.

“Oh, right, I see where this is going,” Harrison says, because the developing shape is quite familiar. “Awful small, though, innit? I can take a much bigger plug than that.”

“Size isn’t the point, my dear fellow,” Cortese says mildly. “I think you’ll find there’s quite enough of it, when it’s put to the proof.” He runs his fingers over the yellow flesh, checking for any ridges that might be uncomfortable. Once he’s satisfied, he fills a glass from the pitcher on the desk, places the plug in it, and carries it behind Harrison. “For one thing, this has to go in without lubrication. The water will help smooth the way, but only a little, so you’ll have to relax and be patient.”

“I’m in more danger of falling asleep.”

“Hmm.” Cortese lays his large, warm hand on one of Harrison’s lean buttocks, then the other, not so much squeezing as pressing. “Quite lovely, really,” he says. “You’ve a certain elegant economy of form.”

“Pfft, you don’t have to pretend to like my skinny arse, you’re going to beat it in a minute.”

“I like it very much, which is why I shall enjoy beating it.” Cortese dips his finger in the water and strokes down Harrison’s crack to the soft pucker of his anus, pressing almost, but not quite hard enough to slip inside. Harrison sighs and tries to spread his legs more, but the cuffs give him little leeway. The finger pushes and retreats, pushes and retreats, encouraging the muscles to loosen.

“Look, I promise it’s not gonna be an issue, just shove it up there.”

Cortese smacks him one on the bum, not too hard, but with an extra snap of the wrist that makes it sting. Harrison yelps. 

“Have I given you the impression at any point that you are in charge of the proceedings?” Cortese asks quietly. His fingers dig into the faint pink mark he’s left on Harrison’s skin.

“No, no,” Harrison says hastily. “Sorry.”

“Because if you’d like to be in charge, I can unstrap you right now.”

“No!”

“Very well, then.” Cortese fishes the ginger plug out of the glass and shakes off a few stray droplets. Harrison jumps when they hit his back, and Cortese brushes them off. “Let’s continue.”

The tip of the plug is cool and firm against Harrison’s opening as Cortese begins to work it up his arse, moving in and out in slow, shallow circles, a little deeper each time. There’s a dragging friction that just rides the edge of discomfort, but Harrison breathes deep, and soon enough the plug settles inside him. It's only about three inches long, and less than an inch at its widest; he can feel it, of course, but it’s hardly a stretch.

“Well done, my lad,” Cortese says warmly, which is ridiculous because there wasn’t anything to it, but Harrison feels the praise in his chest regardless. Cortese returns to the desk, where he pours water into the basin — slowly, to prevent any splashing. He takes out his cufflinks and rolls up his sleeves, folding the cuffs back neatly, and yes, he’s doing this on purpose, isn’t he? Taking his sweet time, knowing how beautiful his hands are. He smiles at Harrison, dips his hands in the water, and begins scrubbing with a cake of soap, working up a thorough lather. Harrison watches the strong fingers working over each other, up the firm, round forearms with their dusting of white hair, almost to the elbow. He shifts nervously. His arse feels warm — not where Cortese spanked him, that’s faded, but actually inside where the vegetable plug is taking on his body heat. 

Cortese sluices water down his arms, white suds sliding along his skin. The sight is mesmerising, but the warmth in Harrison’s arse is starting to distract him. He squirms as it grows, as Cortese, infuriating man, methodically dries between each finger with a fluffy towel. 

“Now.” Cortese takes up the last item on the desk. “Normally I might start with the classic birch rod, but you’ve assured me that you can take a good deal more than that, so I shall hold you to your word.” He examines the thin rattan cane from crook to tip, making sure there are no cracks. Harrison watches him approach, his mouth suddenly dry. Then Cortese stands at attention, presents the cane as if it were a saber, and brings it down with a surprisingly intimidating _swoosh_.

Harrison, half-expecting a crack at the end, tenses in anticipation. His arse clenches around the plug and he shouts, startled — it burns, scorching his rim. “Ow! Fuck! What _is_ this?”

“Oh, how foolish of me, I didn't finish explaining.” Cortese chuckles at his absent-mindedness, as if he hadn't done it on purpose. “Ginger oil is a rather potent irritant, you see, and it induces a warm, tingling sensation when applied internally.”

“That was not a _tingle_ ,” Harrison hisses.

“Well, if you hold it tightly, the sensations do become more intense.” The tip of the cane taps Harrison’s left buttock lightly; he flinches in surprise, then yelps as his arse squeezes the plug again. “Just so. They say it has an aphrodisiac effect on some, so there’s that to look forward to.”

“Not with my luck,” Harrison grumbles.

“No more chatter, now,” Cortese says, his voice suddenly deeper and firmer. He punctuates his statements with taps of the cane on Harrison’s arse, and Harrison realizes with mixed fear and arousal that he’s picking his targets. “I am going to give you six of the best. You will keep count for me. After each stroke, you will thank me and request another.” He lifts Harrison’s head by the hair, not roughly but brooking no resistance, so he can look him in the eye. “Failure to respond promptly and correctly is an additional stroke. Speaking out of turn, one stroke. Profanity, two strokes. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Harrison whispers. He’s never said that before in his life, but it falls right out of him now. The heat builds steadily inside him and his hard prick strains up against his belly. He’d never have predicted that Cortese could put that stern resonance into his voice, or that it would make him want to roll over and beg.

“Very good,” Cortese says, releasing his hair. “Head down again, please. Let’s begin.”

The cane swishes through the air and lands across the top of Harrison’s arse. He screams. The pain is ferocious, white-hot, incomprehensible. He writhes under it, gasping, until that first knife-edge fades into a throbbing ache.

“Mr Harrison,” Cortese says quietly.

Harrison can’t speak for a moment, can’t remember what he’s supposed to say, he's missing something — “One!” he shouts, remembering just in time, the next words coming to him from some half-remembered Eton joke. “Thank you, sir, may I please have another?”

“Perfect.” Cortese is smiling, Harrison can hear it in his voice. “Yes, you may.” Harrison tries to steel himself for the blow, but that clenches him up tight, and the burn of the damn ginger hits inside his arse at the exact moment the cane lands on it. He yells in outrage as much as pain, fingers scrabbling ineffectually at the padding.

“Gah… t-two,” he manages at length. “Thank you, sir, may I please have another?”

“Ah, yes, I ought to have warned you,” Cortese says, patting Harrison’s lower back. “It’s quite natural to tense up when you hear the stroke coming, of course. That does make it hurt a little less when it lands. But with this —” he pinches the end of the ginger and wiggles it, making Harrison whimper — “tensing up isn’t such a good idea after all, is it?”

Harrison grits his teeth, because answering will earn him another cut, and also because he’s not sure what will come out if he opens his mouth. Threats? Insults? Pleas for mercy? 

Cortese doesn’t give him time to find out, but hits him again. It’s just as shocking as the first two, he hasn’t gotten used to it at all. If anything it’s worse, because the ginger just keeps getting hotter. “Three!” he snarls, furious now. How _dare_ he, how dare this donnish little prig make such a mess of him with so little effort? How is he doing this with fucking roots and twigs? “Thank you, _sir_ ,” he sneers, dripping venom, “may I _please_ have another.”

Cortese takes no note of his sarcasm, but brings the cane down again at exactly the same speed and force as before. It’s useless to try not to tighten up: his body has no pride or dignity, it’s just struggling to get away from the terrible scalding pain. He’s sure he hates this, it hurts too much, no one could possibly like it, but his prick’s so hard he can feel it throb in time with his racing pulse.

“Four?” he squeaks. “Thank you, sir, may I please hhhhhave another.” He’s flushed all over, red-hot, sweating like he’s never done before. He can’t tell if it’s the pain, or there’s something to that business about the ginger, or if it’s Cortese’s serene mastery of the situation above all else, but the only thing more maddening than the agony in his backside is the aching tension in his bollocks. The ginger feels frustratingly small now; he craves something that’ll make him ache when it stretches him open, something heavy and solid he can clamp down on. He tightens his muscles, deliberately this time, and groans when the burn washes through him.

Cortese strokes his back gently, between the shoulder blades. “Just two more, my dear, you're doing so well, I'm so very pleased.” His voice is so soft, so gentle and familiar, and Harrison relaxes gratefully into the sensation of safety it kindles in his heart, right up until Cortese cocks his arm and cracks him across the backside when he’s least prepared for it.

The pain of the individual stripes swells into one all-encompassing agony. He can’t even struggle anymore. His limbs are too heavy to move, and he’s shivering. “Fffffive,” he whimpers, and drool drops from his lower lip. He slurs over the next words, _thnksirmplshavenothr_.

“Again, please?” Cortese says kindly. “I didn’t catch that.”

“Huuh,” Harrison groans. His hips rock in shallow thrusts, his prick bobbing uselessly in the open air. “Thaaank… thank you, sir. May…” and he doesn’t want to say it, he doesn’t want another, it hurts so much he can’t breathe and he needs to come so badly he can’t think. “May I please,” and then he’s stuck there, whining “please, please, please” between gritted teeth.

Cortese’s voice goes cold again. “Please what?”

Harrison shudders, because he knows he has to take one more to make it stop, and because maybe... “Another,” he finally gasps. “Another, please, please, I need it, please.”

“Another,” Cortese agrees, and strikes him across the bottom of his arse, just above the thighs. “That’s six.” He pauses, long enough for the first electric pain to sink into a deep searing ache, long enough for Harrison to go limp with relief that it’s over, it’s all over. 

Then he says: “And one more for speaking out of turn.”

Harrison only just realizes what that means before the cane lands diagonally across the six neat stripes, lighting them all up at once, the pain immense and ecstatic. He arches off the table and comes in a great wracking spasm, burning inside and out, his body one fiery line of sensation. He's left limp in his cuffs, empty-headed and floating in a weird mix of warm, befuddled bliss and the shaky exhaustion of an adrenaline crash. It’s good, but it’s much better when warm hands comb through his hair and rub down his back, easing the ache from struggling against his bonds that he hadn’t even had time to notice.

Cortese unbuckles his cuffs and lays a comforting hand on the back of his neck. “Don’t try to get up yet, my dear,” he says. “I want to have a look at these first.”

“Nnn... think I can,” Harrison mumbles.

“No, I expect your legs will need a moment to recover.” Cortese touches each stripe a few times with a neatly-pressed handkerchief. “Tsk,” he says, “I broke the skin just a bit here. We’ll want to put something on that. But first, I’m sure you’ve had enough of this.” He takes hold of the ginger and carefully slides it out. Harrison’s so relaxed he barely feels it, or the wet cloth that soothes his rim afterward, cleaning away the remaining ginger juice.

Cortese never takes his hands away entirely, keeping at least one on Harrison at all times, petting him softly. He goes over the welts with a cooling liniment, his touch, gentle as it is, intensifying the hot delicious soreness. There’s a brief sting as he dabs antiseptic on the split skin, but it hardly registers next to the profound ache of the stripes. Then he adjusts the horse so Harrison is closer to vertical, and takes his arm. 

Harrison grumbles — he’s so comfortable, he doesn’t want to move — and Cortese chuckles. “Come on, now, you need a proper rest.”

He grudgingly clambers down, none of his limbs working quite as usual, and sags into Cortese’s arms. “Just one more thing, my dear,” Cortese says. He turns them a little, and says, “Look behind you.”

Harrison cranes his neck around and sees a tall oval mirror reflecting him from the back: naked and flushed, skin gleaming with sweat and oil. The six horizontal welts are perfectly straight and level across his buttocks, spaced exactly a cane’s width apart. The seventh is precisely placed as well, top left to bottom right, and they’re all a deep, shiny purple-red that makes his knees even weaker. They’re beautiful. He wants a picture.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and Cortese laughs. Harrison sees those strong soft hands gripping his upper arms, blue eyes twinkling over his shoulder, how broad and solid Cortese is behind his own skinny frame. He’d never felt much about his shape one way or another, but from this angle he can see what Cortese was on about: a kind of spare elegance, adorned and perfected by those exquisite stripes. _His_ stripes.

“Come on, then,” Cortese says, when Harrison doesn’t stop staring. “Vain thing.” He settles into his armchair, whose loose springs don’t seem to have affected its comfort at all, and guides Harrison to lie across his lap with his bruised bum in the air. It’s intensely undignified, but Cortese is petting him again and he just cuddles closer, making a little “mmph” noise into Cortese’s tweedy belly. 

The pain comes and goes in waves, floating him along as Cortese slides warm palms up his back, down his arms. “That was very well done, my dear,” Cortese says softly. “You’re very beautiful when you give yourself up to me. I’m so proud of you for taking that so well.”

“Dint,” Harrison mutters, because he’d screamed and thrashed like anything, and earned an extra stroke besides.

“Oh, but I didn’t want you to take it perfectly.” Cortese spreads his fingers wide and presses his hand down on Harrison’s arse, putting firm even pressure on his welts. Harrison squeaks. “I wanted to teach you how to take it for me. And have we learned anything from today’s demonstration?”

“Learned you’ve got the arm strength of a fuckin… really strong bloke,” Harrison mumbles into the cushion. 

Cortese laughs and lifts him up to kiss his rumpled hair. “You really ought to have known better after all this time, dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Pyracantha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyracantha/) for a great beta!
> 
> Thanks also to the GO Events Discord for getting excited about Harrison and Cortese; I'd thought Aziraphale should definitely get to try out some of his vintage flagellation techniques on Crowley, but I had no idea what the hook was until suddenly they were both schoolmasters.
> 
> The piece of equipment described was invented by [Theresa Berkley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Berkley), madam/dominatrix of a flagellation brothel in Georgian London. Unfortunately, her executor destroyed her memoirs; it's said quite a few prominent citizens would have been implicated by their publication. Too bad, because she sounds awesome.
> 
> Finally, thanks as always to Constant Reader [voidbat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidbat/), who's conveniently been longing to read the exact fic I was longing to write.


End file.
